Monday, October 8, 2012

My New Vintage Workspace

Last week my sewing machine died mid-project. My initial reaction of sadness was quickly replaced with the excitement of buying a BRAND NEW SEWING MACHINE (insert angelic sound here).I'm a Singer girl. I grew up with Singers and they are what I know. And I'm a sucker for marketing. So when the marketing folks down at Singer dreamed up the antique looking Singer 160, I'm pretty sure they had me in mind.Now I know that many sewing enthusiasts would prefer to buy an ACTUAL vintage machine, rather than a machine that just LOOKS vintage. But.... let's face it, I could really get into some bells and whistles.And let me tell you. This beauty sews like a dream. I am so in love with her. I love her so much in fact, that the thought of lugging her in and out of the closet every day just seemed cruel and unusual. Clearly she needed a proper home... And so I went antique shopping.

I found this gorgeous Willcox and Gibbs sewing cabinet. Based on the serial number of the machine, I think she is from around 1890. I removed the treadle machine and stored her in a safe place. It does work, but I really wanted to use the table as a new home for my machine.

There were even some extra needles and accessories in the drawers of the cabinet, including some very old "mending floss." The cabinet itself is missing one drawer but is otherwise in great condition. I am using the "coffin top" to store bobbins and such. (Seriously... coffin top? How morbid is that?)

Here is a brief preview of what I have been working on with my new machine, using a twin needle. Yes, that is two slightly different color threads. Let's just pretend that nobody can tell. Okay?

2 comments:

Oooooh,,,, I want one! My mum used to have one of these and when we shifted to another country we had to leave it behind because it was too expensive to pack it. Mum prefers these to the electric ones as she feels there's more control.